Recently, Asian Intangible Cultural Heritage Theories Research Center (AICHTRC) at Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art, Tianjin University was approved as one of the first batch of Tianjin Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Base.

Professor Feng Jicai is the Director of AICHTRC. In collaboration with experts and scholars in related fields from many Asian countries, AICHTRC integrates the interdisciplinary and cross-field advantageous resources of Tianjin University to jointly carry out international exchanges, academic research, talent training, practice and social services on intangible cultural heritage.

Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art has been maintaining close ties with scholars in Asia, especially in Japan, South Korea and other East Asian countries and regions, and has a good foundation for international academic cooperation in intangible cultural heritage. As early as 2009, Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art held the “Experience from Fields - Forum on Methods of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection in China, Japan and South Korea”, which formally started the cooperation on theory and methods of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection with scholars from Japan and South Korea, and produced numerous major research achievements including Japan Collection of Chinese woodblock New Year pictures integrated paper.

The establishment of AICHTRC is a milestone in the development of the disciplinary construction of intangible cultural heritage protection at Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art, which provides a platform for academic exchanges between the scholars of Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art and from other Asian countries and regions, and is conducive to deepening cooperation to broaden the theoretical vision of intangible heritage and explore more effective protection and education methods.

With the establishment of the first Master's Program of Intangible Cultural Heritage Science in China at Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art in 2021, the discipline construction and academic construction of Intangible Cultural Heritage Science have become the focus of the teaching and research work of the Institute. AICHTRC has become the fourth important research platform after the Research Centers on Chinese Woodblock New Year Picture, Chinese Traditional Villages Protection and Chinese Inheritors Oral History.

In the future, AICHTRC will integrate the academic characteristics and advantages of Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art, deepen academic exchanges with scholars in Asia, carry out solid theoretical research and practical work, give full play to the role of demonstration and leadership in theoretical research, personnel training, cooperation on practice, data collection, creative transformation, inheritance and dissemination on Intangible Cultural Heritage. AICHTRC will contribute to the disciplinary and academic construction of Intangible Cultural Heritage with Chinese characteristics and promote the development of protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.

By Zhang Xu

Editor: Sun Xiaofang